My mother bought some Gerber Graduates microwave ravioli the other day (She told me she bought it for the small portion sizes … Okaaaaaaaay.)
On a lark, I tried some. This, in my professional opinion, is absolutely some of the worst “ravioli” I have ever tasted! (There was supposed to be cheese in there somewhere, but you could’ve fooled me.)
Is THIS what we as a society have come to? No wonder our children are turned off by healthy food (Given a choice between poorly prepared meals made from scratch and bland, processed meals such as Gerber’s microwavable meals, no wonder our children are being turned off by healthy food.)
Is it asking too much to add a little FLAVOR to baby food? Nothing too spicy, nothing that would harm a child — at the same time, let’s not make baby food so unappetizing that it has the effect of conditioning our children to hate it! (Would YOU order “cheesy” ravioli that lacked anything remotely resembling cheese in a restaurant? I wouldn’t.)
It doesn’t get any better once our kids enter school (Remember the food we grew up with at lunch? “Mystery” meat … soggy, limp, and overcooked vegetables … would you order THAT in a restaurant? )
If no reasonable adult would eat meat that they couldn’t identify, why do we insist that our CHILDREN do so? And we wonder why they’re eating hamburgers and pizza! (Hey, give them points for eating something they can recognize!)
Dining should be a pleasurable experience. A good meal is a feast for ALL the senses.
People are not machines — we need something more than just basic “sustenance”. It’s long past high time that we taught our children the pleasures of eating healthy, tastefully prepared food.
